UK Registered Charity No: 112285

UK registered charity no: 112285

Patrick is 11-years-old. He is bright, ambitious. He has a dream: to be a doctor. A dream that he should be able to make a reality. But he won’t. He can’t. For the simple reason that he goes to primary school in rural Kenya.

He shares a hot and dirty classroom with forty classmates; a rotting desk with three of them, a tattered textbook with two. All he has of his own is his pencil, even that is broken.

He loves to read. But he’s read all the books at school. There are only a handful of them. They too are tattered and torn.

His younger brother has it worse. He is four. He has just started nursery school. He learns to count from some numbers scribbled on a bit of cardboard. To write, with his finger in the dusty soil outside.

Patrick and his brother are not alone. There are many more children like them. For this is the story not just of one school and two children in Kenya: it is the story of many.

In a step towards achieving universal primary education, the Kenyan government introduced Free Primary Education (FPE) in 2003. From that point, no longer did the burden of funding a child’s primary education weigh solely on parents, nor did the burden for investing in primary schools fall just on families and communities.

However, the reality of a government-funded primary education for over 6 million pupils in over 20,000 primary schools is that financial resources are spread very thinly (equating to just a few pounds per pupil per year, compared to nearly £5,000 in the UK) when faced with the demands of employing sufficient teachers, providing adequate educational resources and investing in physical infrastructure. As a result, teacher pupil ratios are high at about 1:40 and overcrowded classrooms are a common occurrence - indeed many headmasters even solicit parents for funds to employ extra teachers; infrastructure remains dilapidated and out-dated; educational resources are provided at a bare minimum with funds provided, for example, for just one pencil per pupil per term.

The situation at pre-primary level is even worse and no government funds are even allocated for the support of early childhood development education. Many teachers, employed by parents, are untrained; educational resources, other than some improvised materials, non-existent.

The introduction of FPE set Kenya well on the way to attaining one of the key Millennium Development Goals of universal primary education. But it needs the support of organisations such as African Promise to make it an education worth having.

African Promiseis the initiative of 25-year-old university graduate Charles Coldman. On the back of his experiences volunteering in the isolated rural village of Jora, Kenya during his gap-year in 2003 Charles was left shocked by the appalling condition of the local primary school. Before he left the village he made a promise to support the future development of its school.

That was a promise that Charles was able to keep. In October 2006 he returned to Jora and spent six months - living and working with the local community - managing and overseeing the redevelopment of the school.

Seeing so many children’s educations, lives and futures transformed by one school development made Charles look beyond Jora to other schools nearby. The same need was there too and it was clear to him that he had found a direct and effective way of giving lasting help to hundreds of Kenyan primary school children.

So that single project became a formal charity - African Promise- and the story now continues to be written.

In May 2008, Charles returned to Kenya to establish the charity on the ground. Five months later, work recommenced - at the second school - and now, in Nov 2009, work is underway at a fourth.

We have done a lot of work. Indeed there is a lot happening right now. But this story has only reached its second chapter. We have lots more work to do. There are many more chapters to be written.

Our mission...

·to advance education in the five pre-primary and primary schools (total pupils; 1700) of the Nyangala area in Kasigau, south-east Kenya

Our objectives...

·to enhance teaching and learning environments in the schools;

·to enhance the quality and delivery of education in the schools ;

·to empower pupils through learning and educational opportunities;

·to promote awareness of global issues and cultural differences amongst Kenyan and Western primary school aged children.

Our strategic objectives...

·the development of physical infrastructure including, but not limited to, teaching & learning, administrative and sanitation facilities;

·the provision of teaching and learning resources;

·the development of human resources (teachers and school management committees);

·the establishment and coordination of successful links and partnerships with primary schools in the UK.

Our targets…

·for each school to possess clean, dry, cool and bright working environments;

·modern sanitation facilities at a ratio of 1 unit per 20 pupils (with dedicated facilities for pre-primary pupils);

·an individual desk for each and every primary pupil;

·a fully furnished and stocked community library in each school;

·to bring lessons to life through interactive learning;

·to help foster environments where each pupil can find and nurture their individual talents;

·to effect improvements in examination performance and the number of pupils attaining the grades required to attend secondary school.

African Promiseworks in the five villages - Rukanga, Jora, Bungule, Makwasinyi and Kiteghe - that lie around the foot of Mt. Kasigau in the Taru Desert region of south-east Kenya. Situated in the middle of an important migratory wildlife corridor between the Eastern and Western parts of Tsavo National Park - the country’s largest park - the villages are home to around 8,000 people - mostly of the proud Taita tribe. Rukanga - the growing epicentre of the community - is the largest of the villages due to its proximity to access roads heading to ranch lands and mines to the West. The villages are 35km from the nearest sealed road and this isolation means there are limited basic services. All the villages rely on springs high in the mountain for their water needs and of the five villages only one - Rukanga - is electrified. The area has only recently been covered by a mobile telecommunications network.

Comprehensive development…

Our extensive and expansive development programmes address issues across all areas of school life.

In partnership with local communities…

We believe that lasting and sustainable development can only be achieved when those who will benefit from any change are part of the driving force behind it. Our programmes are initiated as a result of close consultation with teachers, school management committees and the local communities themselves and our individual projects are derived from the development programme each school itself has in place. Furthermore, we actively engage the local communities to participate in the work on a voluntary basis both in the supply of locally available materials such as sand, gravel and rocks and in the form of labour for tasks such as painting and landscaping.

With support from all parties...

Our work is widely supported and hugely welcomed by the schools and local people and we have built up strong and positive relationships with the entire community. Importantly, our programmes of work for the five schools have the full support of education officers at all levels - from local to district. We have consulted closely with the District Education Office which has confirmed that our work is in line with their overall strategy for the schools under their oversight and we have the full written support of the District Education Officer.

Not just benefiting the schools…

The impact of our work is not just felt by those involved in life at the schools. Our commitment to using local labour means income is directed straight back into the heart of local economies - where money is more often recycled than injected - and that young and old people alike can earn a living as well as learning and developing new skills. Over the course of the past year we have directly employed, for varying periods, over 125 individuals - many of whom might otherwise have been without work – and awarded contracts for work that would have indirectly given work to at least half that number again.

As it stands, the kitchen at Kiteghe Primary School - a simple mud-brick building which produces a daily, term-time lunch for over 225 children - is unhygienic, hazardous and outdated. In fact, it is barely even recognisable as a school kitchen. Enormous vats of food are cooked upon a handful of traditional open (and therefore inefficient and uneconomical) wood fires in an extremely poorly ventilated room. Years worth of pitch black soot from the thick wood-smoke is layered on every interior surface and is, without doubt, a serious health hazard to the cooks who work here on a daily basis.

We will transform the facilities for cooking lunch at the school by constructing a new kitchen. The focus of the kitchen - which will be modern by Kenyan institutional standards - will be four enormous stainless steel energy saving stoves with a combined cooking capacity of 525 litres. Clean water will be piped directly into the kitchen from a 3,000 litre polyethylene tank outside - in turn fed by gutter-collected rainwater and via a piped connection to the main village supply. We will provide washing up facilities both inside and outside the building complete with underground plumbing and drainage to collect and safely dispose of grey water and kitchen waste.

• 75 per centreduction in firewood use - the heat retaining design of the energy saving stoves will radically improve efficiency when cooking and drastically reduce (by up to 75%) the schools’ excessive consumption(many hundreds of kilos per week) of locally collected firewood - a practice which contributes heavily to local deforestation and, in turn, to detrimental changes in the local climate;
• a healthier working environment- the design of the stoves and the provision of hearths & chimneys will ensure a well-ventilated space thereby eliminating smokeandpreventing the harmful build up of soot deposits in the kitchen space and, more importantly, in the lungs of the cooks;
• improved hygiene - the provision of clean water ‘on tap’ and the installation of modern drainage systems to allow waste and dirty water - currently merely thrown onto the ground outside - to be drained safely away into underground soak-pits will radically improve hygiene

(please see appendix (iii) for photos)

One might reasonably question the need for this project when we simultaneously talk of a chronic lack of more basic facilities and resources. However, whilst we are of course involved in a range of projects elsewhere which address such needs, we feel that - in line with our strategy of addressing issues across all areas of school life - projects that focus on nutritional problems can also bring huge benefit to the schools and their pupils.

The construction of a modern new kitchen at Kiteghe will be an important first step towards realising our ambition of radically enhancing the quality and delivery of school lunches which we believe can impact heavily upon the welfare of children and on their ability to work.

Our future plans include constructing a dining hall (so the children are no longer forced to eat lunch in the classrooms or on the ground outside); to provide cutlery (no more eating with dirty hands!) and to initiate innovative projects (such as the development of a kitchen garden) that will allow the school to grow crops to supplement and add nutritional value to the bland maize-based meals that are currently provided through the World Food Programme.

Because we are such a new organisation, we do not yet have any audited accounts. However, a financial summary is attached (please see appendix (ii)). As you can see from our figures for ‘08/’09, we are run on an extremely cost-effective basis. Indeed, over 96 per cent of our total expenditure of £61,500 for the year was accounted for by direct project related expenditure (namely: materials, labour, contractual work and material transport). Running costs of the charity (staff salaries, office overheads etc) amounted to only £2,400 and this sum was covered by our regular standing order donations – a situation which will continue.

This means that 100 per cent of funds raised in the form of grants from trusts, foundations and corporate supporters was spent directly on our school infrastructure projects.

The projected total cost of constructing and equipping the kitchen at Kitgeheis just £6,527(please see appendix (i) for full cost breakdown).

Of this, just over £2,700 is allocated for the modern energy saving stoves. Much of the remainder is accounted for by material costs (including construction materials, plumbing accessories and timber for shelving, cupboards and cabinets) and associated labour costs.

Please would the [insert name of trust]consider making a grant of [insert funding request]which would enable us to construct the kitchen building, as well as equip it fully – and therefore provide a nutritional meal daily to 200 primary school children in an area of Kenya where there is such a great and urgent need.

With your interests in [insert relevant interest of trust]we hope and feel that this proposal fulfils the criteria of [insert name of trust]

Appendix (i)

Estimate
(Ksh)* / inc. 5% contingency (Ksh) / Total
(£)**
Materials
construction / 212,088 / 222,692 / 1,856
window / door / 28,475 / 29,899 / 249
plumbing / 39,975 / 41,974 / 350
paints / 14,950 / 15,698 / 131
shelving / storage / 35,123 / 36,879 / 307
Total material costs / - / 347, 142 / 2,893
Equipment
construction equipment / 10,980 / - / 92
energy saving stoves / 325,000 / - / 2,708
weighing scales / 2,000 / - / 17
3,000lit water tank / 21,000 / - / 175
Total equipment costs / 348,000 / - / 2,992
Labour costs / 66,700 / 70,035 / 584
Transport costs / 7,000 / - / 58
OVERALL TOTAL / 6,527

*Ksh = Kenyan shillings

**Exchange rate = 120Ksh:£1

Appendix (ii)

‘08/’09
(£)
Incoming resources
grants / 58,000
donations/gifts / 43,054
investment income / 1,041
Total incoming resources / 102,095
Resources expended
charitable activities / 59,164
overheads / 939
salaries / 579
cost of generating income / 522
admin. costs / 122
banking / 222
governance costs / 0
Total expended resources / 61,548
Net movement in funds / 40,547
funds brought forward / 4,462
Funds carried forward / 45,009*

*This surplus can be accounted for by the fact that the grant for a £40,000+ project had been received at the end of the financial year to 31st March 2009, but the associated expenditure was actually incurred on the project in the following financial year (y/e 31st March 2010) and so was carried forward. We hold minimal reserves as funds are spent directly on projects as and when they are raised.

N.B. these are draft figures - our accounts for the year ended 31st March ’09 are currently being prepared by our accountants. As the accounting year to 31st March ’09 was our first financial year of operation we do not have available any previously published or examined accounts.

Appendix (iii)